More than 230 angry and frustrated investors in the late Allan Hubbard’s investment companies Aorangi Securities and Hubbard Management Funds have lodged a formal complaint against the statutory managers with the Government.

It is about the statutory managers’ performance and has been sent to Minister of Commerce Craig Foss and the Auditor General Lyn Provost, a statement from the investors said today. The statutory managers were appointed on June 20, 2010 and are from accountancy firm Grant Thornton.

The complaint was initiated by the Investor Liaison Group and ‘‘undersigned with the support of over 230 investors’’.

It follows ‘‘the latest blunder by the statutory managers in discovering previously forgotten boxes of documents that are pertinent to a judicial hearing to decide distribution of Aorangi’s assets.’’

As a result the court hearing set down for 29 October this year had to be postponed until May 20 next year.

‘This is the last straw for investors who are extremely angry at this inexcusable error by the statutory managers,’’ the investor statement said.

Investors claim ‘‘the statutory managers have failed to perform their duties satisfactorily’’ and that they ‘‘have failed to adequately protect assets to the approximate value of $60 million – those assets having been pledged to Aorangi’s capital by the Hubbards’’. The result was that the statutory managers had had to take legal action to secure the $60m of assets for Aorangi investors.

They said investors were struggling financially and emotionally with the delays. At least 22 had died since the start of the statutory management. The statement said many of the deaths were related to stress and delays to the return of capital.

The investors also criticised the statutory managers handling of Hubbard Management Funds which they believed had delayed the distribution of funds to them

They said the cost of the statutory management was now more than $12m.

Grant Thornton said it would release a statement later today on the complaint.